Monday, May 16, 2016

THIS WEEK: THE STATE OF NONCOMMERCIAL TRIPLE A RADIO

As you probably
know, noncommercial station folks, music companies and public radio bigwigs are
gathering this week in Philadelphia for the 16th
Annual NONCOMMvention [link].Noncom
Triple A has grown in listeners, number of stations and influence over the
years. The buzz on the format has gone from Maybe
this will work to It works great if
done correctly. Triple A has become a viable format choice because it
attracts a younger demo than other noncom formats, the deep relationship its
listeners have with the music and demonstrated sustainability.

I won’t be at the
NONCOMM this year but I hope to make contributions to the conference by
providing metrics, station profiles and historical context. My focus is the
business of noncommercial Triple A radio. Today we begin with the most recent
ratings data.

The chart below
includes 14 fulltime music stations in PPM markets with sufficient data to
compare estimated weekly cumulative listeners in April 2016 with April 2015. Ten
of the 14 stations gained weekly listeners and only 4 had fewer weekly
listeners. This is good news given the highly competitive market for music
listeners.

At stations with
more than 100,000 weekly listeners, KUTX, Austin (up 17% and WYEP,
Pittsburgh (up 16%) had the biggest one-year gains. The stations with the
largest number of weekly listeners are WFUV, New York (323,200), KCMP aka 89.3 The Current, St. Paul (279,700),WXPN, Philadelphia (266,900) and
KKXT, Dallas (265,700).

Here is the full
PPM market chart: (changes
of more than 10% are highlighted in yellow)

DIARY MARKETS: WNRN IS A
REGIONAL STAR PERFORMER

The most recent
Nielsen Audio ratings data for markets using the Diary method are from Fall
2015.Below is a chart we published in
January. We found data for 15 fulltime music stations. It appears that more
stations in Diary markets are subscribing to Nielsen Audio data.This is a good sign because there are several
terrific noncom Triple A stations (WAPS for example) for which we do not have
data.

WNRN is a star
performer.It reaches listeners in four
Nielsen measured markets. WNRN has become a regional presence. Folks at stations
interested in becoming fulltime Triple A stations should study and emulate WNRN.

Here is the full
Diary market chart: (changes
of more than 10% are highlighted in yellow)

THE AMAZING SUCCESS OF KCRW

KCRW is one of the
fastest growing noncom stations in the nation. Their estimated number of weekly
cumulative listeners grew 27% from April 2015 (516,600) to April 2016
(709,200). This is an amazing story.

Because KCRW has a
dual format (NPR News and Triple A), it is difficult to say which of the two program
streams contribute the most to the increase without seeing hour-by-hour data.